Randlett's Big Pasture school wins $50,000 prize in national competition
By: David Gonzalez
Updated: November 3, 2012
Students, parents and staff at Randlett's Big Pasture Public School are celebrating a big win on Friday and we're not talking about Friday Night Lights.
Big Pasture took part in the U.S. Cellular "Calling All Communities" competition.
The winners were announced this week and chool officails were shocked to find they were among the finalists.
More than 1,300 schools from around the country participated in the competition but only the top 18 walked away with a cash prize.
First place got $150,000 and the other 17 schools each got $50,000.
Nona Laminack, Big Pasture school counselor, says they owe this huge accomplishment to the community.
"Fifty thousand dollars. It's amazing for us. We're very blessed to be awarded this," Laminack says.
Big Pasture is home to 207 K - 12 students.
Laminack says it took lots of support far beyond Randlett's boundries to achieve this win.
"We're such a small community," Laminack exclaims. "We don't have enough people to compete with a school district the size of Chicago, that's who we were competing against. So it took an entire community branching out to win this."
Diane Bejessie, Big Pasture school principal, says small schools have seen a decline in enrollment in recent years which affects their funding.
Bejessie says the $50,000 prize will help in many ways.
"Our funding is just really limited right now," Bejessie says. "We need every ounce of funding we can get. This is just truly a blessing for us. There's just a multitude of things that we can do with this money."
School officials say they owe this award to the parents who worked countless hours to gather votes.
"This would have not been made possible if this group of parents and Mrs. Laminack had not worked so diligently and long hours," Bejessie says.
Laminack says, "A huge thank you to everybody that participated and helped because we couldn't do it alone."
Now the big question that remains is what big pasture will do with the money?
School officials say they are not sure where the money will go but they have some ideas like spending it on technology.
They are sure they're going to try and win again next year but this time it's for the $150,000 1st place grand prize.
